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Happy Holidays 2024!

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“ I know there's been pain this year, but it's time to let it go Next year, you never know But for now, Merry Christmas” -Ed Sheeran Was listening to Holiday music today and this line struck me as a great way to start this letter.  I imagine 2024 was like t hat for you, as it was for us.  But for now, Merry Christmas, and let’s start this letter! Hope you enjoyed the holiday fill-in-the-blank quiz, and it gave you something to contemplate while waiting for your phone to charge, or while taking that break from your many holiday parties or guests. We’ve included the answer key in case you are one of those people you can’t get the thought of not having the answer complete out of your head.   As you can see from sleuthing our puzzle, we tried to squeeze as much out of (or into) 2024 as we could. Thanks to some friends' weddings, we were able to visit Phoenix, Roanoke, Canton, Charleston, Philadelphia Stacie a...
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Happy Holidays 2023!

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Here's a look at what the completed puzzle looks like! IT'S THE RETURN OF THE  CASTRO CHRISTMAS LETTER FOR 2023!! It seems like we have fallen into a pattern of only writing these letters every other year.  At the risk of having this become the Bret Saberhagen of holiday letters, we will apologize for last year’s gaffe, and revive the letter for 2023.  We are grateful for all of the opportunities that this year afforded us, and as we look back on the last 12 months, it’s really surreal to think about all the adventures we were able to go on.  In all, we visited 6 new countries.  If you're interested in checking out some of our photos from the year, you can see them here . Streets of Copenhagen In January, we took the MLK weekend break to visit Copenhagen with our good friend Nolan.  We tacked on a cold, blustery day trip to Sweden while we were there.  It was just a short train ride over the border. Our Summertime #CastroTravels took us to Japan to cel...
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Happy Holidays 2021!

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Do you ever let your mind wander and imagine what we will talk about when we are no longer in the midst of a global pandemic? Perhaps there will be a lot of awkward silence, small talk, asking about the weather.  Then after a pause, we’ll say, “remember when we used to be able to wear masks? That was the best!” Things are so screwy that I don’t even remember what it was like to write an annual holiday letter.  I feel like we skipped writing one last year.  Then again, I also feel like we skipped last year altogether. So bear with us as we try to re-start the forge.  Thanks to the vaccine (here we go again, talking about the pandemic), we were able to get back to #CastroTravels!  That, of course, helped us keep our sanity. Although, judging by our Holiday Card, I guess there wasn’t much sanity left to salvage.  Meanwhile, I'm sure that we annoyed all of your social media feeds, so for those of you who muted us, or are too old/cool for social media, here’s a ...
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Happy Holidays 2019

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Hello and Happy Holidays! As we said in  the postcard, 2019 was a tough year.  If I were to sugar coat it, I’d say it was the “Bud Light Lime” of years:  It wasn’t the best.  In mid-January, Jed’s mom was diagnosed with an aggressive cancer. She spent the next 4 months in Charlottesville, and passed away on May 4th.   Now, I know that Holiday letters are supposed to be like Christian Radio:  positive, uplifting and encouraging. But it wouldn’t be a #castrochristmasletter if it were normal. The first part of 2019 was undoubtedly some of the most difficult months of our married lives.  But in the last few months of my mom's life, we did get to spend a lot of time with her. We did some talking, some cooking, and even a little traveling with her. We took her to see the Cherry Blossoms in the Nation's capital, something she’d always wanted to do; and also got a chance to take one more family vacation as a family (...
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